5 ms·

Its not just googlers, the legacy accounts where available to everyone at the start. but the venn diagram overlap of people * willing to pay for such a to

by y4mi 5y ago

Its not just googlers, the legacy accounts where available to everyone at the start. but the venn diagram overlap of people * willing to pay for such a tool, * not having switched to another provider since * and not willing to start paying for it now will be tiny

quesomaster9000 5y ago
You're forgetting the circle of ageing techies that used to use AltaVista and now (in)directly control large budgets, have long memories and significant clout when it comes to guiding our replacements into making the right decisions and educating them about corporate (mis)trust.
- y4mi 5y ago
  Uh, why do they matter in the context of a potential side project to let people migrate their Mails from the discontinued free legacy project to a free private account?
  - quesomaster9000 5y ago
    Because sometimes you have to "do the right thing" and not be an arse, despite what the metrics say.
- blagie 5y ago
  I'm in that circle. I've cost Google millions of dollars in business due to a history of similar dick moves on their part. This adds just one more to the list. The organization I work at will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever consider using Google for anything business-critical, and neither will businesses I advise in various roles. I have at least a dozen relatives on my Google family domain. We're looking at a lifetime cost of tens of thousands of dollars if I were to switch to Workspace, which is a non-starter. One possibility is to finally incorporate my family foundation as a 501(c)3, if we can do that in time. It's been on my to do list. I'm not even sure where to go from here, but I have things like Android apps I've bought on this account, as does my family. Or I guess the word is "rented." I have a bunch of logins with Google OAuth. Or I guess past tense. I feel like there's a class action in here somewhere.
michaelmrose 5y ago
It was free for 10 accounts. The number one massively applicable use case vs plain google accounts was vanity domain names and signing up was no harder than creating a regular gmail account. There are probably more vanity domain users than small businesses with 10 people. In fact I would venture to guess with the 10 address limit they are nearly 100% of the remaining users on the legacy program. The cost of the domain name is $10 per domain per year or $1 per person per year little enough for one person to pay without thinking. Most people keep an email address for a very very long time rarely switching unless a service ceases to exist. Almost no domain owners are going to pony up $720 per year themselves and collection from other users will be an untenable hassle. Basically every bullet point you listed is wrong. The remaining pool of users is likely 99% vanity users who would have used Gmail+custom domain forever at no real cost to Google over free Gmail none of which will migrate to Google workspace. For Google the gain from this change will be identical to picking n random Gmail accounts and canceling them and keeping those users digital purchases as a giant fu. Not ruinous but hardly profitable either. Someone with an ounce of sense would have included the option to migrate all email accounts to regular Gmail accounts.
- binkHN 5y ago
  I agree with everything you posted here! With one exception. The number of accounts, originally, was unlimited—you just needed to request them.
- ArchOversight 5y ago
  It was free for unlimited accounts (I still have a G Suite Legacy account that was grandfathered into that) at first. Eventually unlimited free accounts was dropped to 50, in 2009 (my grandfathered account was soft-capped at that, with the option to reach out to support to increase it), but I had several other domains that were hard-capped at 50 since I opened them after that limit was instituted. [1] Then that limit was dropped from 50 to 10 (hard capped, grand-fathered accounts kept their old limits) in 2011. [2] Then last but not least there was the 1 user free if you had a Google AppEngine project (that came with the requirement that it was tied to a G-Suite at the time). My G Suite legacy accounts were all created in 2007-2010 timeframe. [1]: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2009/01/50-user-limit-for-new-standard-edition.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2009/01/50-user-limi... [2]: https://cloud.googleblog.com/2011/04/helping-small-businesses-start-and.html https://cloud.googleblog.com/2011/04/helping-small-businesse...
Thorrez 5y ago
Why would it be a paid tool? I would assume it would be free.
webmaven 5y ago
> Its not just googlers, the legacy accounts where available to everyone at the start. Right, but only (some) Googlers are in a position to solve the problem by applying 20% time to it.

by y4mi 5y ago

quesomaster9000 5y ago

You're forgetting the circle of ageing techies that used to use AltaVista and now (in)directly control large budgets, have long memories and significant clout when it comes to guiding our replacements into making the right decisions and educating them about corporate (mis)trust.

y4mi 5y ago
Uh, why do they matter in the context of a potential side project to let people migrate their Mails from the discontinued free legacy project to a free private account?
- quesomaster9000 5y ago
  Because sometimes you have to "do the right thing" and not be an arse, despite what the metrics say.
blagie 5y ago
I'm in that circle. I've cost Google millions of dollars in business due to a history of similar dick moves on their part. This adds just one more to the list. The organization I work at will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever consider using Google for anything business-critical, and neither will businesses I advise in various roles. I have at least a dozen relatives on my Google family domain. We're looking at a lifetime cost of tens of thousands of dollars if I were to switch to Workspace, which is a non-starter. One possibility is to finally incorporate my family foundation as a 501(c)3, if we can do that in time. It's been on my to do list. I'm not even sure where to go from here, but I have things like Android apps I've bought on this account, as does my family. Or I guess the word is "rented." I have a bunch of logins with Google OAuth. Or I guess past tense. I feel like there's a class action in here somewhere.

michaelmrose 5y ago

It was free for 10 accounts. The number one massively applicable use case vs plain google accounts was vanity domain names and signing up was no harder than creating a regular gmail account. There are probably more vanity domain users than small businesses with 10 people. In fact I would venture to guess with the 10 address limit they are nearly 100% of the remaining users on the legacy program. The cost of the domain name is $10 per domain per year or $1 per person per year little enough for one person to pay without thinking. Most people keep an email address for a very very long time rarely switching unless a service ceases to exist. Almost no domain owners are going to pony up $720 per year themselves and collection from other users will be an untenable hassle. Basically every bullet point you listed is wrong. The remaining pool of users is likely 99% vanity users who would have used Gmail+custom domain forever at no real cost to Google over free Gmail none of which will migrate to Google workspace. For Google the gain from this change will be identical to picking n random Gmail accounts and canceling them and keeping those users digital purchases as a giant fu. Not ruinous but hardly profitable either. Someone with an ounce of sense would have included the option to migrate all email accounts to regular Gmail accounts.

binkHN 5y ago
I agree with everything you posted here! With one exception. The number of accounts, originally, was unlimited—you just needed to request them.
ArchOversight 5y ago
It was free for unlimited accounts (I still have a G Suite Legacy account that was grandfathered into that) at first. Eventually unlimited free accounts was dropped to 50, in 2009 (my grandfathered account was soft-capped at that, with the option to reach out to support to increase it), but I had several other domains that were hard-capped at 50 since I opened them after that limit was instituted. [1] Then that limit was dropped from 50 to 10 (hard capped, grand-fathered accounts kept their old limits) in 2011. [2] Then last but not least there was the 1 user free if you had a Google AppEngine project (that came with the requirement that it was tied to a G-Suite at the time). My G Suite legacy accounts were all created in 2007-2010 timeframe. [1]: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2009/01/50-user-limit-for-new-standard-edition.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2009/01/50-user-limi... [2]: https://cloud.googleblog.com/2011/04/helping-small-businesses-start-and.html https://cloud.googleblog.com/2011/04/helping-small-businesse...

Thorrez 5y ago

Why would it be a paid tool? I would assume it would be free.

webmaven 5y ago

> Its not just googlers, the legacy accounts where available to everyone at the start. Right, but only (some) Googlers are in a position to solve the problem by applying 20% time to it.